Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [180]
‘Yon raddled neep-end!’ said Michel Hérisson, overflowing joyfully into the doric. ‘Keeps his lordship supplied with stolen silver at half the market price. Used to buy off me, too, till I found what he was up to. By God, I could tell you—’
‘Do,’ said Lymond; and at the end of a vitriolic recital, related what he knew of him. ‘I want proof from him, Michel, that it was for d’Aubigny that he arranged to wreck La Sauvée last year.’
The sculptor, spread on a box with his swollen feet on a bracket, looked from under his eyebrows at the other man. ‘Stewart will tell everything about d’Aubigny, won’t he? D’ye think his lordship will wriggle out of it?’
‘Yes,’ said Lymond placidly.
The round eyes continued to stare. ‘I see. Have you seen Beck?’
‘He’s not at home. I haven’t managed to trace him in three somewhat rigorous days. And I can’t afford to stay any longer.’
‘Have you any other source of proof, man?’
‘One. A last resort, only.’
‘With that lamentable mess,’ said Michel Hérisson tartly, ‘nothing should be a last resort. If it’s proof, use it. I’ll look after Beck. I know enough about him to bring his scalp out in quills. He’ll confess … once I find him. But if I were you, man, I would go and make sure of your witness.’
‘With a bloody great chisel,’ said Lymond.
At the tone, the sculptor’s light lashes flickered. ‘A woman, is it? Why get dainty over that? The alchemy’s different, but the claws are the same.’
‘Not my property,’ said Lymond pleasantly. ‘The alchemy, at least. I’ve had a taste of the claws. Right so came an adder out of a little heath bush, and it stung the knight on the foot. You confine yourself to tearing the God’s truth in handfuls out of the elusive M. Beck.’
Hérisson got to his feet. ‘Christ, I’m going to enjoy it. Let’s go and eat. Man, I wouldn’t have known you. You’ve—’
‘—Sinned against my brother the ass. I trust the rulers of France are going to be equally deceived. My brother is at Orléans, waiting for me with the Court news. O’LiamRoe was to arrange that.’
‘You think you can fool them a second time?’ Michel Hérisson, his gaze critical, helped himself, limping, to Lymond’s near shoulder. ‘… God, I’m glad I’m not your brother. If they find out you’re Thady Boy and d’Aubigny’s still in favour, then—’
‘Then how happy we shall be,’ said Lymond gently, ‘to have the confession of M. Beck.’
In Orléans Richard Lord Culter, whom Michel Hérisson did not envy, awaited his brother in the inn called the Little God of Love; a choice on Lymond’s part reassuring in its felicity. Elsewhere in the inn also awaited the main portion of Vervassal’s considerable luggage, his page, his valet, his trumpet, his three men at arms and his groom, as supplied by the Queen Dowager, dispatched directly to await their master’s arrival.
Richard, admitted late to the Queen Mother’s confidence and owing the better part of his new information to O’LiamRoe, could find nothing either chastened or repentant in the image Phelim had drawn for him—an account in which O’LiamRoe had not seen fit to include any mention of Oonagh O’Dwyer.
With mild curiosity therefore, and no more, Richard from the Dowager’s side had noted the coming of another Irishman brought by George Paris to the hospitable Court of France: a burly man of great height, with filbert cheeks, black brows and a round calyx of satin-black hair trimmed just above. After his initial reception at Court, Cormac O’Connor stayed at Neuvy, with the Irishwoman Richard had already met: a retiral advised because he proved greatly given to fighting, a pastime which also appealed to the Queen Dowager’s disgruntled Scotsmen.
The Queen Dowager approved of Cormac O’Connor; the Prince of Barrow did not. In his mind’s eye Richard cherished a picture